Little Black Dress
by marley greene
Summary: A love story. Trunks/Pan. Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and I'm not making a profit from this story.
1. Chapter 1

Little Black Dress.

A Love Story.

By: Marley.

Disclaimer: I am not Akira Toriyama, Toei Doga/Animation, Pony Canyon, Viz, or FUNimation... I'm not even Japanese. I am not making a profit from this story.

* * *

There was a man inside of the bank, holding a gun and firing recklessly into the air. The noise was incredibly loud, echoing in the marble lobby, and a woman had covered her ears and was screaming from near where he was standing. Across the room, people dropped to the floor crying. "This is a stick-up," he yelled as he started running towards the counter.

"Mommy!" A little boy was wailing somewhere. People called out to each other desperately.

"I think you should stop that," a clear voice rang out, loud over the pandemonium.

"What the…" the man stopped dead and whirled around, scanning the huddled masses of frightened bank patrons through the sight of his gun.

"Up here, Slime." And there was Saiyaman, standing on the metal detector that had first announced the robber's presence only a minute before.

"Saiyaman!" The people gasped. "We're saved!" "Thank Kami!"

"Saiyaman?!" The criminal yelled. "How did you get here?"

"Wherever trash like you is in supply, I'll be waiting to do the clean-up," a distinctly feminine voice came from the hero, before she jumped to land in a crouch on the lobby floor.

"Where's your tough partner?" The thief was taunting her. He didn't look nearly so confident now as he had when he'd started, though, he'd lowered his gun and continued to move toward the counter, backing away from her.

"I don't need him to get rid of you," Saiyaman stood slowly and took one step forward.

"Ha," the man grunted as he leveled his gun and fired.

"Too slow," Saiyaman spat, leaping to the side and out of the way. The glass pane cracked behind her under the impact. "And, now, you've made me angry."

"Is that right?" The man asked, now quickly backing up toward the counter.

"It is," Saiyaman nodded before rushing toward him, feet leaving the ground entirely. With a single punch and a whoosh of air, the man was on the ground, clutching his stomach. A teller peeked over the ledge of the counter. "I'll hold this," Saiyaman spun the gun he'd been holding, "until the police get here."

As if by some magic, with a cry of "Saiyaman," the police were streaming through the door and crowding around the heroine. The scene continued for only a few seconds after she was totally obscured.

"Again," a woman appeared onscreen behind a desk, "that was Channel Five's incredible footage of the City Bank robbery, captured by an amateur fil-"

-

"I'm so sick of this!" Videl was yelling. "I was done for the day."

"I just want everyone to be able to see my little girl flying around." Hercule argued. "Here."

Videl was standing about twenty feet away on a patch of tall grass. Her arms were crossed over a large T-shirt. "Fine." She lifted off of the ground and gave a smile.

"Yeah, Videl," Hercule roared.

"Are we done?" She asked as she touched back down. "Why are you using that old thing anyway?

-

"Gohan, stop!" Videl demanded, looking right at the camera. All that was distinguishable was one eye and the arch of her cheekbone. "You've got it all zoomed in on me, again, don't you?!"

"No," Gohan laughed, the volume of his voice incredibly loud, and the eye shrunk to normal size as he zoomed out. Videl came into focus. Her hair was pulled back into a small bun and she had on a long black dress. There was some blush dusted across her cheeks and she'd used a very faint, natural-looking brown eyeshadow.

"I can't believe what I'm hearing!" She sighed as she stuck the post of one earring through the hole. "Son Gohan is telling lies." More loud laughter. "What would your mother say?"

"Videl!" Hercule burst through the door and the screen blurred as Gohan turned to look at him. "What's he doing in here?" When Hercule came into focus, he was pointing at the camera.

"Gohan is insisting on using this camera to film me wearing a dress." Videl answered from off screen.

"This is Videl in a dress," Gohan narrated, his voice a whisper.

"It's not as though I've never worn one before," She shot him a look. Gohan was filming her hands as they fluttered nervously, Videl kept crossing her arms and then going back to resting on her hands on her hips.

"She's never worn one before," Gohan narrated through a fit of laughter. The dress was simple, with spaghetti straps holding it up and a low neckline. A few strands of hair had already escaped from the back, where it was still too short to reach the elastic holding the bun in place.

"She is a bit of a tomboy, isn't she?" Hercule conceded, his voice quiet as though he was walking away. Gohan adjusted the camera to film him leaving through the door to Videl's bedroom.

"I'll give you 'tomboy,'" Videl threatened jokingly from off screen.

Gohan dropped the camera a moment later. "Videl!" He shrieked in surprise.

* * *

Pan felt tears spring to her eyes. She wiped at them with the back of her hand. This was stupid. Crying all over the living room floor... Her parents weren't dead, they were at work, and they'd be home soon enough. And they'd be angry if she didn't finish going through all of their videos.

Bulma wanted to convert all their home movies to some kind of machine. Pan never bothered to try to understand any of it. It wasn't really a bad deal, as long as they kept using Capsule Corps' latest stuff, they'd just be able to keep having Bulma upgrade things.

Pan rocked forward onto her knees and popped the video out of the VCR. The short layers Bra had cut into her hair fell unevenly around her face. She looked at the tape, a faded tag read "High School" in her father's deliberate script. High school. It was the worst time of her life. She set the tape into the box of ones to take to Bulma. By this point in their lives, her socially inept parents had met each other and were running around saving the city in stupid costumes, defending the world and deeply in love.

Pan was neither.

She was one of the girls who kept quiet at school. She had few friends because she let few people get close to her. Pan had never needed friends, either, because she stood beside the most popular girl in her grade. As though it wasn't enough being Bra Briefs' weird best friend, her grandfather was martial arts icon Hercule Satan and her father taught some of the collegiate-level math courses at her high school. If people wanted to define her in terms of her relationship to someone else, that was fine. She wasn't trying to be voted Prom Queen, anyway.

Pulling one more tape out of the box, she sat back down on the carpet. "Pannie's First Bath," she read aloud. With a snort, she tossed the tape over her head where it landed in a box with the rest of the one's she'd blow up.

* * *

Review? Let me know that someone's reading. 


	2. Chapter 2

Little Black Dress

A Love Story.

By: Marley.

* * *

Pan landed lightly on the lawn in front of her friends' huge house. She glanced down at the box she'd tucked under one arm. It still looked pretty full, so maybe all the tapes survived the flight. With a shrug, she began making her way to the door. Vegeta's ki was way up there, so he had to be training somewhere around here and she was not about to get pulled in. As she concentrated on Vegeta, Pan tucked her hair back behind one ear. He was in the GR. She would be able to avoid him. She had to avoid him, he'd nearly broken her arm two days before and she wasn't ready to train again.

"Hello," she yelled as she swung open the door. No one answered, but she'd expected that much. The house was huge and people didn't wait by the door for guests to show up. Bulma was probably all the way downstairs in her lab.

"Could you be a little louder?" Trunks' cool voice came from the other side of the sofa as she entered the TV room.

"Jackass," Pan muttered without skipping a beat.

"Man-hating power lesbian," Trunks returned. Pan froze.

"…grow up," she shot at him after a minute. She stormed off without bothering to wait for a response or think of something more to say.

What was his problem anyway? They always argued that way when they saw each other, but today he'd been direct and especially cruel. He was supposed to tease her until they ended up sparring over it, calling it a draw, and getting something to eat. She slammed the door to the stairwell and stomped loudly on each step as she made her way down to Bulma's work area.

"Hello, Pan," Bulma called up.

"Bulma?"

"I'm around the back." Pan hopped over the railing and set off down a narrow isle between rows of bookcases. "Did you bring any videos?" Bulma emerged from a gap in the shelves ahead of her.

"Right here," Pan smiled. Clearly, the asshole in Trunks was from his fathers' side. Bulma was wearing an old pair of jeans that had faded and torn at the knees and a plain white t-shirt. She'd been growing her hair out since before her last birthday and it was currently all pulled back into a sloppy bun.

"Don't let him bother you," Bulma slid past her.

"Who?" Pan could feel her cheeks warming. Bulma could read people incredibly well and, as a Son, she was always wearing her emotions on her sleeve.

"'Who'…" Bulma chuckled. Pan followed awkwardly behind her. "Let's see these videos, then?" Bulma held out one hand.

"Alright," Pan regarded the box carefully. She'd placed a bunch of safe videos on top and stuffed the most embarrassing ones to the bottom, in case anyone else was in the lab. They were alone. What were the choices? Her preschool musicals, her junior high graduation, her parent's high school years- Pan grabbed that video and passed it to Bulma. "This one."

Bulma looked at the label before sliding it into a slot in the large, blue machine they'd stopped in front of. "Not a video of you?"

"I'd rather embarrass them, first." Pan nodded.

Bulma smiled and pressed a button. Again, Videl was taking out the robber at the bank. "I remember this," Bulma exclaimed and she reached out to touch the screen.

"The robbery?" Pan raised an eyebrow. It hadn't looked serious.

"No," Bulma said through laughter. "Making these for your parents."

"You made those costumes?" Pan hadn't ever really thought about how they'd come across the crazy jumpsuits before.

"Unfortunately," Bulma nodded as she walked away. "I tried to make uniforms that weren't silly looking, but Gohan refused."

"Why?" Pan laughed. Bulma went around to the next shelf and disappeared down a narrow aisle.

"I think he wanted people to believe that he was a moron," Bulma was yelling back. "I made a decent one for Videl, but your father insisted that they match."

"He would," Pan sighed to herself. Absently, she began flipping through the old videos again. It was sort of sad to see all her memories in a little box like this. There were videos of tournaments from before she was born. Even Goku was on some of the tapes. It was good Bulma was preserving all of them.

"I swear it was right here," Pan heard Bulma mumble as she moved things on the shelves. Pan wasn't a very emotional girl. Or overly feminine, as Trunks had pointed out, but she loved her family. "Aha!" Bulma shouted. "I found the suit I made your mother!" She yelled out.

"Great!" Pan shouted hesitantly over the rows of old machines. Did Bulma really think it was necessary to yell?

"This is classy," Bulma stepped over a shipping box and into the little area cleared at the bottom of the steps. Pan turned, hadn't she left in the other direction? There was some black material bunched in her fist. "Gohan was crazy for keeping Videl from wearing this." Bulma laid it down on the table next to Pan and wiped some of the dust from her cheek with the back of her hand.

"That is nice," Pan nodded, looking back up at the image of her mother in a violently colored outfit. "Nicer than that," she pointed at the screen as Videl kicked a bag of zeni out of some guy's fist.

"I know," Bulma threw her hands into the air. "I tried to tell him, but he wouldn't listen…" Bulma went back to working with the machine in front of them. Pan looked back at the suit. It was just a pool of shiny black and silver materials. "Try it on," Bulma's voice startled her and she looked up. Bulma was watching her.

"I couldn't…" Pan insisted.

"Come on!" Bulma was on the move. She rounded the table quickly, snatching up the outfit by one of the pant legs and pushing Pan toward the employee bathroom behind the stair well with the other. This was crazy. "You just have to! I'm sure it's held up all this time…" Ms. Bulma was talking so fast she couldn't get a word in edgewise. "Just try it for me?" With a final shove through the door way, her friend's mother slammed the wooden door shut behind her. "Take your time. You have to come out and let me see it, when you're done, though." Pan looked down at the garment. "Okay, Pan?"

"Fine," Pan called back. Pan hadn't seen Bulma move so quickly since Bra set the tablecloth on fire at the Charity Dinner ten years ago.

So, she was putting this on. The fabric was soft in her hands, but offered some resistance, like a swimsuit. Pan held it out in front of herself. The arms and legs were collapsed on themselves and the bodice looked like it might fit a sixth grader. She was probably a lot bigger than her mother had been. She was five centimeters taller, nevermind her weight. This was not going to be pretty. Pan cast a sideways glance at the long mirror over the row of sinks. Her skeptical image was glaring back. Eyes lined heavy with black pencil and mascara glared at her from under an uneven fringe of bangs.

She shifted. Her jeans were snug and had a low waist, with a flared leg to cover the black sneakers she always wore. Her black leather jacket matched, with a row of dull silver buttons up the front and a straight collar.

'Man-hating power lesbian,' Trunks insult came back to her. Was this what a lesbian looked like? She pushed her bangs back from her flat face. She looked Japanese like her mother. Her father's features were sharper, more angular. The short layers of her hair fell back into place at random as she unbuttoned her jacket before shrugging out of it and unlaced her boots before kicking off her jeans.

The little suit in front of her seemed to glare back up. From the moment Bulma had first laid it out, it had been daring Pan to try it on. She felt goose bumps raise over her arms as she slid her right leg into it. The material clung to her skin. Pan wondered fleetingly if it was the same material Vegeta always wore to train. It came awkwardly over her hips, as though it might not unroll far enough to reach past her chest. As she slid her arms through the tight sleeves, she supposed it did fit her after all. How it looked was another matter entirely.

Pan winced as she bent down to adjust on of the pant legs. She toyed with it a moment before berating herself. If her fat legs really looked like sausages, she'd pull it off and Bulma would never get to see it. Pan snapped upright and let out a slow breath before glaring into the mirror.

It fit.

It fit well. Her legs didn't look like sausage links, at all. They looked long and muscular. The silver stripe that tore down from one shoulder made it look almost as though she had a chest. Pan poked her waist.

"Pan?" Bulma was yelling from the other side of the door. "Come out here."

"In a second," Pan yelled. The material must have been stronger than it seemed. It was giving her a waist. She turned around and looked at her reflection from over her shoulder. She had a waist from his angle, too! And her butt looked good. Pan smiled. She flexed her arms and her triceps looked solid.

"You look good!" Bulma exclaimed as she burst in.

"I-" Pan took a step backwards, away from her.

"It's a pity you'll never use it, though," Bulma sighed, turning to walk out.

"Yeah," Pan called after her. "…I'll, uh, get changed." Was it a pity she'd never use it, really? "Be right out." Pan stepped back in front of the mirror, though. She looked mature. She looked like a super hero. Her father had told her keeping a secret identity was no easy business and using one meant fighting crime with the police. Pan didn't know how to fight crime and she didn't like police. She sighed longingly as she slid her hands over the curves of her hips.


	3. Chapter 3

Little Black Dress

A Love Story.

By: Marley.

* * *

Pan sat cross-legged on the dark hardwood floor of her bedroom. The rich smells of her grandmother's cooking permeated the house, floating all the way to her loft in the addition her parents had built onto her father's childhood home. Normally she'd go down and offer to help cook, even if it was just so she could sneak a few bites, but she knew ChiChi was only getting started. Her parents wouldn't be home from work for a few more hours and the preparation was beginning quite early since Goten was coming by after closing the dojo.

When she'd left Capsule Corp. earlier, she'd snuck out without saying goodbye to anyone, black suit in tow. Now it was lying across her bed. She attempted to clear her mind, resisting the urge to try it on again and pushing away thoughts of the impending family dinner. Slowly, she closed her eyes and let out a deep breath.

Trunks' insult from earlier immediately sprang to mind. Pan opened her eyes and flopped over backwards onto the cold floor. The two of them hadn't always fought like this. Pan blew her bangs off of her face. She couldn't even hold it against him, really, because the change in their relationship was her fault.

Pan could remember a time when they were best friends. When she was ten, they'd spent an entire year living together, traveling in space with her grandfather. Goten changed in the time they were away. He was still interested in girls and dating, but his attitude toward training was different. It was as though he didn't see the point in pushing himself.

The opposite was true for her and Trunks. They'd fought a dozen battles that proved they needed to be stronger and faster. Being the weakest in their makeshift family had left in Pan a deep desire to be equal to Trunks, respected by Goku. While the year had increased her primal drive to fight, Goten's had withered away without anyone there to push him.

It was only a few months after her return that she realized how deep her feelings for Trunks were. As always, she'd gone to the Capsule compound on Saturday to train with Vegeta. He was already in the GR, however and when Pan hesitated to interrupt his training, Trunks caught up with her.

* * *

"Pannie!" She'd jumped at hearing his voice and whirled around. He was jogging toward her wearing loose-fitting sweatpants and a black tank top.

"I just got here," she excused herself. She felt her face flush and wasn't sure if she was more nervous about talking to Trunks or having been caught spying on Vegeta's private training time. She knew a warrior kept secret attacks. She knew that when she sparred with Vegeta it was very different than actually fighting him in battle.

Trunks laughed good-naturedly and took her by the shoulder, steering her back toward the house. "Let's get something to eat and then see about sparring with Dad, okay?"

"Okay," Pan answered hesitantly.

Trunks heard the reluctance in her voice. "I want to talk to you, anyway," he grinned down at her as they entered the kitchen through the sliding glass door.

"Really?" Pan heard how eager her voice sounded, but she couldn't help but grin up at him. Trunks was great and she'd had a crush on him since she was six or seven.

"Yeah," he nodded as he sat down at the small kitchen table.

Pan walked into the kitchen and poured a glass of tea from the fridge. Don't blow this, she coached herself. She sat down across from him. "What did you need to talk about," she asked in what she hoped was a careless voice.

"I wanted to tell you that I'm glad you always come over here to train," Trunks began.

"I love training with you!" Pan responded a little loudly. Trunks smiled in that way that said what she was doing was 'cute,' like he did when he was about to call her Pannie. She mentally slapped herself. That's not playing it cool. Think like Vegeta.

"Let me finish," was all Trunks said. Pan nodded. "When I was about your age Goten and I learned the Fusion technique, remember?"

Pan bit her tongue. She was eleven years old. Trunks had been eight when he fought Buu. "I remember," Pan sighed. Among the Z Fighters story-telling was a great pastime and traditional of basically every get-together …especially when Grandmother wouldn't allow any fighting.

"After Goten and I had fused, it was really like we were the same person in two different bodies. We would speak in unison and answer questions someone had asked the other person," Pan nodded again, listening intently now. She'd never heard Trunks or Goten talk about fusing, though Vegeta had briefly explained it and her Grandpa G had struggled to describe what it felt like. "I guess it helped that we were incredibly similar to begin with and Goten really looked up to me, back then. Sometimes, I swear, we could read each other's minds." The look on Trunks' face was distant. "It wasn't all mooning people and causing trouble, either." He laughed. Pan smiled. Trunks looked down at her for a moment without speaking.

"Trunks?" Pan tested softly.

"Sorry, Pan," he grinned. "I guess Goten and I changed a lot during high school. Sometimes now I feel that way about you, though." Pan took a sip of her tea in order to hide a smile she feared was so wide it would crack her face in half. She wondered for a moment if Trunks could hear how fast her heart was beating in her chest. "Come on," he pushed back his chair and jumped up. "Dad's powered down."

Pan sat there for a moment, though. the way Trunks described his friendship with her reminded her of the way her father had described his love for her mother. It was something Pan admired. As she followed Trunks out into the yard, staring up at the great expanse of West City, she realized there was no one else for her on the Earth.

* * *

Pan sat forward and stared over her small bed, with its' thick, handmade quilt, out the window. The view of the Paozu Mountains from her second story bedroom was breathtaking. She wasn't sure how Vegeta could stand to live in the middle of the city like that. Absently, Pan pushed herself to her feet and crossed her room to the more comfortable window seat.

That memory seemed so distant, though Pan recalled it clearly for how precious it was to her. At the time, Trunks had been almost finished with business school and she still hadn't even started looking at colleges. Pan swallowed hard. She hated thinking about how much older Trunks was. Fourteen years was such an incredible distance. Even when she felt like it was something they could ignore, the sharp words Trunks had spoken after realizing her crush on him a few years ago were enough to bring tears to her eyes.

* * *

"Pannie," Trunks had drawled. His voice held frustration and embarrassment and her nick-name reverberated like something disgusting in her ears. "You're a baby, you're fifteen! I'm almost thirty years old," exasperation was stamped onto his face. "Plus, you're about the most immature tom-boy ever. You whine about everything, you're totally irresponsible and self-serving, and you've never had one boyfriend."

Pan closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to see the look on his face, she felt like she couldn't breathe.

"Grow up!"

* * *

Pan pushed the window open and rolled out of it in one smooth motion. The wind immediately picked up her short strands of hair, tossing them lightly as she rushed toward the ground. For a moment Pan let herself fall, then she forced her energy downward and shot off in the opposite direction. Soaring away from the house, the clean scent of the forest filled overtook her senses as a single tear rolled down her cheek.

"Grow up," she swiped the back of her hand across her face. But growing up was hard. She was already beginning to look at colleges and that scared her. No matter what Trunks thought, she recognized college as what had torn he and Goten apart. They might have begun to really grow into different people and develop into themselves during high school, but college was what drove a wedge between them.

Trunks had attended the prestigious Business School of Southern University, while Goten had completed basic studies at several different schools in New East City. It wasn't the physical distance that drove them apart, either. They'd always lived across a continent from each other and never had to spend much time together to stay close. Trunks could have studied marine biology in the Papaya Islands and Goten ice in the Empire without distance making a difference for them.

It was the experiences that they had without each other, away from their families, that changed them. And, Pan figured, those experiences were ultimately based on what type of lives they were expected to lead. Trunks was going to become the next President of the multi-billion zeni Capsule Corporation while Goten scraped by teaching martial arts to children at his sister-in-law's father's dojo. Through college Trunks had attended parties and classes, striving to be a normal Human, just as Goten went back to basics in his training.

Maybe Goten didn't push himself in training after Baby had been defeated, but that was years ago now. And anymore, neither did Trunks. Pan rolled in the sky, watching as clouds turned over to the trees and the wide river which wound through the woods below her, then back to the clouds again. She soared along on her back for a while, lost in thought and staring absently at the clouds painted fiery reds and deep oranges by the setting sun.

At least they were each doing what they loved. As adults, they did the things they were born to do and lived using their natural talents. Trunks managed his family's company and Goten worked with children.

What were her talents? What would she go on to study after finishing high school in the spring? Pan sighed, as the wind whipped her hair around her eyes. She was obnoxious and tenacious, born to fight. She just wasn't Saiyan enough to be great. …to be Super.

* * *

Author's Note: I'm sorry for not updating for so long. You can all thank my last reviewers for getting me back onto this website to continue posting stories. And remember: if you like it enough to favorite it, you like it enough to review. ;)


End file.
